Kibbutz Be’eri chooses single burned-out house to bear testimony to October 7

Kibbutz Be’eri has selected the house that will remain standing as a testament to the horrors of October 7, 2023, a month after residents voted to demolish all but one of the homes destroyed during the Hamas onslaught on the Gaza-adjacent community.

The burned-out house belongs to Yogev and Yael Dvori, who were in Cyprus with their four children at the time of the attack. The fact that the family survived was one factor in the decision to choose their home, as was its location in the Kerem (vineyard) neighborhood on the edge of the kibbutz: residents will not need to see it every day.

Be’eri was one of the hardest-hit communities during the attack. Of the over 1,200 people killed when Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, 102 were residents of Be’eri — around a 10th of the community. Thirty more people were kidnapped to Gaza from the kibbutz (all of whom have since been returned, either alive and dead).

Residents had recently debated what to do with the two worst-hit neighborhoods, and the decision to tear the homes down was controversial — with one government minister indicating he may try to block the move at the urging of bereaved families.

Ultimately, kibbutz members felt that demolishing most of the homes and rebuilding, rather than living in a perpetual monument to the devastating attack, was crucial in allowing them to move on.

The Dvori house will remain standing for at least the next five years, according to the decision. It will form a part of the community’s testimony, along with documents, visual materials and various items selected as part of a special visual history program at the Yad Ben Zvi research institute.

Yogev Dvori told the Ynet news site, “My position was that we should destroy everything and leave no trace, not turn the kibbutz into Auschwitz or a pilgrimage site for visitors. Simply erase everything and commemorate beloved people, not buildings.”

He went on, “From the first day, we didn’t care about people entering our house, because we didn’t go through a traumatic event there. Moreover, after we realized that there was nothing to save, we didn’t really care about the house. As far as we were concerned, the door could remain open, and whoever wanted could come in, take pictures, do whatever they wanted. It had become a showhouse anyway. Anyone who wanted to see burned houses entered our house.

“Today, that’s behind us.”

Dvori said the family had returned from Cyprus with few belongings and received clothes at a hotel to which the surviving kibbutz residents were initially evacuated. He added, “Later, we went into the house just to take items that were meaningful to us, such as a family photo album that was covered in soot. To this day, it is impossible to have it at [our current] home because it reeks of smoke, so we keep it in storage.”

Around 80 Be’eri residents have returned to the kibbutz, while most are in temporary accommodation at Kibbutz Hatzerim, also in the Negev region of southern Israel.

The Dvoris are also now in Hatzerim. They plan to return to Be’eri next summer to a new house, which is currently under construction.